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French People Are Urged to 'Go Flexitarian' - What's That?

Beouf Bourguignon and Coq au vin are dishes a flexitarian may dream of but will rarely sink their teeth into except on rare occasions. Health watchdogs are urging the people of France to cut back on their meat and fish consumption. By reducing these foods in their diets, they will naturally lose weight, save money and contribute to saving the planet.

Simply put, a flexitarian is a semi-vegetarian. Meat products are allowed but eaten less frequently. WWF France has been studying this situation and has found that the average weekly food bill for a four-person family (two children, two adults) is about €190. If they would drastically reduce buying and eating meat, the overall health of each person would improve.

Meat can be expensive, so when their purchasing habits become more 'flexi'-friendly, their shopping trolley will contain two-thirds percent vegetable protein and one-third percent animal protein. This works out to a reduction of 30 percent of the meat purchased in the nation and 40 percent of the fish purchased. To compensate for the loss of meat, there should be an increase in vegetables in the diet by 50 percent. The money saved every week could possibly be used to buy organic foods or a higher quality of certain food items.

There are a few benefits to this less-meat-more-vegetables way of eating. First of all, anyone eating as a flexitarian will begin to see their waistline decline. It will provide a nutritionally balanced meal plan that will help everyone attain healthier bodies. This style of living and food purchasing will also cut your carbon impact by 38 percent.

Being a flexitarian is a matter of choice, and each person can decide to what extent they want to cut down on their meat and fish intake. Another plus to this style of semi-vegetarianism is dairy products are not subject to a decrease. A flexitarian is free to enjoy the same amounts of cheese, yogurts and other dairy products.

This may sound like a wonderfully healthy lifestyle to some but asking other French citizens to give up their meat is asking the impossible. The French love their saucisson, consuming 2.2 kilos of cold meats every second. That's 70,000 tons per year. In 2015, the World Health Organization labeled saucisson and jambon carcinogenic. While there are those who may decide to adopt the flexitarian way of eating, there are others who have no intention of giving up those glorious, tasty meats that are so famously French.